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From: ddb@viper.UUCP (David Dyer-Bennet)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.mail.uucp,comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: uucp source copyright status - IMPORTANT
Message-ID: <723@viper.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Mar-87 01:54:37 EST
Article-I.D.: viper.723
Posted: Mon Mar 23 01:54:37 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Mar-87 04:11:03 EST
References: <480@gouldsd.UUCP>
Reply-To: ddb@viper.UUCP (David Dyer-Bennet)
Organization: Terrabit Software
Lines: 18
Keywords: no copyright notices in all the uucp source I've ever seen.
Xref: mnetor comp.os.minix:452 comp.mail.uucp:367 comp.sources.d:484

In article <480@gouldsd.UUCP> mjranum@gouldsd.UUCP (Marcus J Ranum) writes:
>3) can someone be held legally at fault for, in all good faith, assuming 
>	that the global abscence of copyright information indicates that
>	the code is public-domain, and (for example) posting it to the net ?
>
>	The last comment there is playing the devil's advocate, but I think
>you see my point. Those of us who frequent the grey areas of bulletin boards
People only have access to the AT&T uucp source under an explicit license
agreement, which they would be violating if they posted the source to the
net.  Copyright isn't the only way to protect computer software!  In fact,
copyright makes it certain that the code WILL eventually fall into the
public domain; it may be that they have deliberately NOT copyrighted the
code for that reason.
-- 
David Dyer-Bennet
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